Chapel: 09-01-21

[Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh my god [Music] [Music] hey foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] from everything else [Music] welcome [Applause] [Music] [Music] oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Music] oh [Music] uh [Music] is [Music] break the walls [Music] oh [Music] spirits [Music] fears [Music] [Music] is [Music] jesus [Music] we want to see [Music] [Music] so [Applause] father god as we have watched the taliban take control over afghanistan we remember your church in that place as they navigate uncertainty we pray that they find strength wisdom and supernatural peace in god's promises we also pray for the displaced a new wave of refugees is expected to come from afghanistan to many parts of the middle east and the rest of the world we pray for the protection and provision over them in their journeys we pray for the women many women fear that taliban rule means they will be strict of opportunities for education women involved in education during the past years could also be at risk we pray for their protection we pray for the sick though under reported in international media coven 19 cases are spiking in the country and hospitals are limited in what they can offer there is no certainty as to how the health care system will be able to sustain itself with the new taliban government lord we pray that the health care system will not collapse we pray that the country will not be a haven for extremists the taliban government of 20 years ago are known enablers of extremist islamic organizations with their new home control over afghanistan the country could be host to a new generation of terror groups we pray against this god have mercy on this terrible situation we pray for moderate voices in the taliban to gain infection and influence lord would you protect life would you mobilize the right government and powers to make wise decisions that lead toward the best possible outcomes would you strengthen your church to be a faithful witness in the midst of persecution whatever we fall with you in our vision lord their right in the darkness and their eternal hope we also pray for the devastation of hurricane ida on the gulf coast and the continuing suffering of the people of haiti after the earthquake there would resources reach those who need them especially the most vulnerable in the name of jesus our as we sing this next song i invite us to sing this in solidarity with some of the people we just prayed for it's a it's an ancient irish hymn called be thou my vision and there's a line towards the end where it says heart of my own heart whatever befall whatever befall still be my vision for ruler of all and just i want to pray that with the church in afghanistan and so much uncertainty part of my own heart whatever befalls whatever happens in this situation still be my vision a ruler of all that reminder that god is still the ruler of all so invite us to sing this for our own hearts as praise the lord and in solidarity with the church around the world [Music] hello [Music] me [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] is [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Music] oh [Music] oh [Music] [Music] jesus christ [Music] is [Music] is [Music] oh [Music] jesus my glory [Music] jesus [Music] [Applause] thank you evan and paris for leading us to prayer worship one of the best things that happens for our hearts is we realize that other brothers and sisters around the world are having vastly different experiences and we need to hear from those voices because we need to have a bigger picture of the kingdom and get out of our own myopic experience so this is one of the rich parts of being here a couple of announcements last chapter somebody dropped their inhaler i will leave it right here probably need that um secondly i want to remind you once you're up here on a mic to please keep your mask on in chapel we just want to honor and love one another by protecting one another in this space so that we can continue to worship so it's just going to be part of our culture that get a little elbow from somebody but we're doing this for each other so we can keep doing this okay and also today is going to send you one more email because he loves you and he knows that you love email and um it's a reminder that today tonight at 11 59 pm is the last minute to sign up for a top box state group and i really want to encourage you this is a great way to just get together with a small group of people wherever you are on the journey and know one another intentionally and pursue the word together so those are great groups and you'll get a whole menu of groups that you'll find something for your skin well this morning we have the annual privilege of hearing from dr edie schultz and edie is the gimmick give me a [Applause] is the little president of student life and she has spent a career with young people from the early days as an rd uh at some other college in illinois and other places to now make our vice president for a good season of time and she has chosen a career and a calling to be with young people and pretty much everything that's outside of the realm of academics didi helps oversee that on our campus i'm so excited for us to hear from her because her heart is for you so edie come on up [Applause] well good morning i've waited a long time to see us back in the gym and here we are it is so great to see you uh i want us to just take a moment and get still and would you just invite god with me to speak this morning in this moment of stillness lord we open our hearts to you [Music] i will speak words but it is your spirit that will empower i ask this in jesus name amen well this morning i want to talk about a uh i've entitled it worth the work and here's why i think there are lots of things in life that are wonderful sometimes they're hard their work but if they matter it's worth it so i'm going to start by talking about my summer this is uh sunrise spent a lot of time here in santa barbara this summer that's the sunrise a couple weeks ago this is the sunset um this picture was taken in prescott arizona i had the opportunity to spend a week there this summer just beautiful tons of hiking managed to get some blisters but so worth it uh this kitchen was taken in alaska i spent two weeks in a motor home driving around alaska with a friend of mine this was on a 10 mile hike we were up in the denali national park and that was a hard hike that was a hard day a high elevation um and we actually did get to see denali i don't know if you can see it but i learned that about only 10 of the people who go to alaska and want to see denali can actually see it the highest peak in north america 20 000 feet we were part of 10 we were so fortunate to be able to this is about 40 miles away but we actually did see it this is one of my favorite pictures my second favorite picture probably this is rocky he's a two-year-old moose and he lives on a reindeer farm just outside palmer alaska and in alaska individuals or groups can't own moose they belong to the state of alaska but you can raise them if you find them when they're young so rocky was adopted by this reindeer farm when he was young and this is my favorite picture isn't that awesome i got to kiss them okay now of course i would not do this in a while because they're wild but what they do is they give you a little spring of leaves and they and you put it in your mouth and then rocky comes up and he takes the leaves and it looks like you're looks like you're kissing him so you want to see it again right you wanna you want me to email you this so great then uh my friend paul and i we got to take a family picture with rocky it's another great picture and paul is it was actually one of the really great things about this summer i got to spend a ton of time with friends from a lot of different places paul spent six months in the year rv around alaska which is great and this is a picture of my sister spent some time with her and her family this is in sedona this is a picture of my sweet mom who turns 89 this month and my grand needs juliet my mom's great granddaughter my mom is uh suffers from dementia so i have chosen with my brothers and sisters to do our very best to honor her as we can in this season of her dimension so i mentioned blisters that was hard heights that was hard my mom's dementia this is increasingly hard and uh this is a bump right past the picture i'll show you oh it's not there there it is this is a picture of my mom this is representative of her cognitive ability at this point she sorts tiles from purple into colors for shapes gets them right a lot of the time that's hard is it worth the patience that i pull on to sit with my mom in a sizzler while she sorts purple tiles it absolutely is i'm honoring her it's worth it were the heights worth it i had blisters absolutely were they hard for sure but it was worth it so i'm by trying to make the point that when things are when things matter it's worth the work let's talk about westmont this is what westmont is about this is our mission statement westmore college is an undergraduate residential christian liberal arts community serving god's kingdom by cultivating thoughtful scholars grateful servants and faithful leaders for global engagement with the academy church and world i boiled it down so you can see our five planks in there they're highlighted in yellow but i boil it down to three things we're here to learn we're college we're here to be a community to do it in a certain way and we're we're about faith we're about the christian faith so what i did in preparation for this was i went to our community life statement i don't expect you to read this but what i did was i went through and i highlighted things in blue represent that which speaks about faith that was in yellow speak about that which relates to community and that green is about learning so i'm going to highlight some things for you in each of these three categories what the community life statement says about it why it might be hard and then why it might be worth it i'm going to give you a tip in each of these reach these elements so let's start with learning these are some of the phrases in the community life statement about learning about the wise development of the mind truth-centered attitudes we want to pursue the truth here this is the great conversation of collegiate life we get introduced to new concepts new ideas it's about inquiry it's about challenging teaching which you will get about reflective learning so why it's work well it's work because it's a new material and i'll say it's a lot of new material probably got silver shot right now it's a lot a lot has to happen this semester but it's not just the amount it's the quality of what you're getting we are a liberal arts college because we want to help transform the way that you think about things we want you to be able to analyze synthesize integrate information and knowledge so that you can actually be a box of scholars it takes discipline it takes time management it takes sitting down with that book one more time you read that next chapter even when you don't feel like it you'd rather go get pizza sometimes it requires courage because of proper fellow students that's something that's a little challenging you have to lean into it does that mean help me understand and it demands humility we can open our hands open our minds and say i'm going to learn here i want to learn something let me give you uh a little tip i wish somebody would have told me this is what was happening to me when i was learning new things and this applies not just to academic knowledge or cognitive things it also applies to relationships and learning new things about myself learning new things about my faith but maybe this metaphor will help you when you're young when i was young maybe you had a little bookshelf in your toddler room it might have looked something like this maybe it was made of press wood or cork or it was small didn't need to hold a lot of things stuffed animals crayons a few books a couple toys not much then you went to elementary school and you've got more books more stuff to have with more dolls and your bookshelf needed to be a little bit bigger needed to bear more weight you needed to carry more things and then by the time you were an adolescent maybe your bookshelves were something like this now we've got toys and trophies and baseball hats and models not just books but all kinds of things sneakers each time that bookshelf had a change you had to get rid of the old in order to make way for the new you're going to be introduced to some ideas where you're going to it's not just you can't cram the new information into your old framework you're actually going to have to change out the whole change on the framework to develop more maturing perspectives more mature ways of looking at things more nuanced ways of understanding that's part of learning that's part of knowledge it's about developing perspectives a child's bookshelf fits great in the child's room but it doesn't sustain for the duration of life and this process actually continues on for as long as we're alive we will be learning so the more nuanced the bookshelf the more different shapes and sizes in your mind and the different ways that you can manage information and knowledge the more thoughtful you're becoming is it worth the work it's absolutely worth the work let's talk about community community statement has a lot to say about who we are as a community and how we live our lives it uses the words like this justice and mercy civility other centered practices which means putting myself second about confession and forgiveness okay so why is it work we are wounded people and we wound other people we are sinners requires forgiveness that's hard requires patience and stability i have to own my responsibility just like you have to own yours care is about caring for others putting them first this summer i had uh two friends i meet with these two friends about once a month we've been friends for about seven years and they came to me and they said we want to talk about something great i love these friends the group is great these are women who are leaders in their own organizations um they're smart we both we've all got asian parents um we've all got dynamics with our siblings that are challenging and that sort of thing so when we get together it really kind of is a you're not really being transparent on what's going on we're here to help you we want to support you hold back two things happen one we can't do that but then two it sort of feels like you're not fully engaged you know you're right when i feel stressed when i feel anxious i would just much rather just isolate it let's do that we're here for you it's a good word i needed to hear it i suspect that at some point in your college life maybe this semester maybe this month you're going to have a situation where you're with a friend with a peer something's going to happen and you're going to say that that just didn't feel very good something's bothering me i need to talk about it in order for us to be the community that we intend to be we have to develop skills gather our courage and say the hard thing so i'm going to teach you a set of phrases that you can use when you have to say something difficult for someone that you care about and they all start with the word i and uh they have a situation let's say i'm a roommate and i'm clean i like things to be tidy and need and she's messy she's just a little bit more carefree and this week if we live together for a month or two i'm going to start to feel like this doesn't work very well i'm starting to feel anxious i can't even sit down and i have a meal to run and clear anything off this table this isn't going well so the first thing i do is i pray i pray lord make my heart right let me find the right time the right words prepare her maybe i'm missing something here help us have a good conversation set us up well i pray second thing i do is i say here's what i care about so i get with my friend and my roommate and say here's what i care about i care about you i care about our relationship i care about our how we live together i care about the environment that i come home to here's what i see i see that the tables cluttered on a regular basis i see that there's stuff all over the living room and here's what i feel i feel anxious about this i feel like it's building a barrier between us i feel weary i feel like i can't relax in my own home and then i listen maybe there's a reason she says here i never even thought about it my family everything was everywhere she might say i don't have to get used to it but she might say you know you're right we can do better and then i say i want here's what i want i want our common areas the places where we share space can we at least have those being tiny but here's what i'm willing to do if you tell me that you're having a rough day if you're in a busy season if you've got three days that are just crazy just tell me and i'm willing to tidy it up i'm willing to give a little bit we can work on this so i offer this to you as a way for you to create a conversation when you have to say the hard thing is it worth it is it worth the work i believe our community is and how we live together will be stronger when we can say respectfully to one another all right let's have a look at faith right off the top of the community life statement jesus it cites jesus who says love one another because i have loved you so it's about love for god and for our neighbor we need to remember that all humans are created in the image of god our whole community life statement the college is based on scripture it's about the body of christ we consider ourselves to be part of his living presence here in the world our college model in fact is christ preeminent in all things why is it hard why is faith hard well times are tough life can be difficult we can get lazy maybe we're living in disobedience and faith is more challenging maybe we don't know how we don't know how to grow in our faith maybe we get discouraged let's not discount the fact that satan may be influencing and preventing us from growing in our feet he would love to destroy our confidence in god i want to offer you two things that i think make a difference in how we as a community these individuals develop in our faith you've heard me talk before you've probably heard me talk about daily time i'm convinced that the habits that you develop in your 20s are more likely to persist with you through your life and give you the fruit that you desire than if you don't develop those habits while you're here here's what i mean my day starts between 5 and 5 30. typically i get up and i go for about a three mile walk if you're driving around by bonds or butterfly beach or on your way up the hill you may see me walking in the neighborhood around here this is a music a devotional scripture teaching it's about 45 minutes and then i come home and i sit in my chair find i have a favorite chair i open my bible open my journal open my study and i pray i pray through the day that the past i pray for the day that's coming up has got to speak to me and empower me and that time that daily time that i have with god absolutely sets me up to be more present to what spirit has to say be more present people and to be faithful to what god's asked me to do so i challenge you maybe you can find your favorite chair and i say if you've not done this start with 15 minutes if you need help knowing where to start we've got resources today campus pastor's office will help you i'm convinced that daily time with god is the best individual thing you can do i also want to challenge us to keep the sabbath god says honor the sabbath rest one day a week six days later but one day a week take a break when i started doing student development work about 34 years ago i met two students kelly and sarah they were dedicated christians one was pre-med i care what the other one was i think maybe english and they would set aside every sunday they had demanding academics for sure but they would set aside every sunday they'd go to church have lunch with friends the afternoon they'd watch a movie play basketball take a nap read a novel and then in the evening they'd go to a worship service on campus that was helped every sunday night kelly and sarah taught me modeled for me what it was like to keep a sabbath i'm not always good at it i'm better than i was but i'm a sabbath keeper several years after they graduated kelly's husband took his own life tragic as a woman of who dated spent faith with god as someone who honors sabbath surrounding herself other christians she was able to weather that terrible storm and even find a witness and a way to talk about your faith with people who just did i am so convinced that what we do personally individually in this regard shapes our community not just us but our community so i challenge you to consider it okay so we've been talking primarily about us individually but let's widen the lens a little bit and let's talk about society early in 2021 i was uh going to church vote in portland oregon online because we were still remote at that point and john mark homer hated this picture of this cultural moment he said these eight characteristics typify what's going on in our society right now individualism idolatrous psychology ideology political polarization exhaustion moral relativism careerism the digital revolution injustice do we think that into this environment what we're about here could make a difference do we think we could matter in a world like this foster scholars grateful servants faithful leaders what we're trying to cultivate here at westmont is something that will constructively hopefully live mercy and justice engage with our country and people around the world does it matter what we're doing here it absolutely matters is it worth the work i'm so convinced it is [Music] we need to cultivate this kind of compassion and we as a community are about does it matter what we're doing here learning about all disciplines and all all the things that are happening in society absolutely it matters and then let's add to it the challenges around the code getting sick anxiety depression fear loss of family some of you have lost family fast friends you've lost rituals right to the passage does who we are as a community matter when we are the hurting ones does a community of learning and faith make a difference when we're the ones who are hurting it absolutely does scholars grateful servants faithful leaders so we're trying to produce here we can help each other it kind of reminds me [Music] do we long for something better do we want peace do we desire mercy and justice we've been persecuted for our beliefs unlike what jesus said blessed are those who are poor in spirit but theirs is the kingdom of heaven blessed are those who mourn that they will be comforted blessed are the meek for they will inherit the earth blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they will be filled blessed are the merciful for they may receive mercy blessed are the pure in heart for they can see god blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness for theirs is the kingdom of heaven jesus came to usher in the kingdom and we get to be a part of bringing a little piece of up there down here we do it by how we live how we learn how we serve how we can stay faithful does it matter that we're trying to be a community when your neighbor your roommate is going through a hard time does it matter what we're trying to be does it matter that we're trying to produce great physicists outstanding teachers those who will serve in the ministry skilled musicians does it matter absolutely is it hard it can be it can be really hard but jesus said he came to bring hope he bring love because a community a little piece of habit right down here and what he offers to us is right there i hope you catch a glimpse from what it is that we are what we are what we're trying to be that you'll have grace to forgive one another forgive me forgive us when we don't get it right because we'll make mistakes and that we commit to doing this together to be a community of learning a community of hope dignity of faith and my prayer is that as each one of us takes them seriously we will have a multiplying impact not just for us here at westmont but with every interaction that happens outside of our campus downtown santa barbara in mexico when you go home when you go around the world it absolutely [Applause] so [Music] crashing in the [Music] now surrender [Music] when i trust you i don't need to understand me yours make me an offering [Music] but all you have given me [Music] in the crashing [Music] i [Music] you are breaking through [Music] take me an offer [Music] have given me [Music] is [Music] there it is [Music] is [Music] [Music] um [Music] me okay [Applause] what's up baby you

Channel: Westmont College

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Keywords: Westmont, Westmont College

Id: kKY_R9B4MDM

Length: 50min 5sec (3005 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 01 2021